


Cloud of the Mountain

by sanctum_c



Series: Clerith Week 2017 [7]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: F/M, George of the Jungle fusion, Silly, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27391639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctum_c/pseuds/sanctum_c
Summary: Life gets weird for Aeris during her attempt to find the mythic talking cat of Mount Nibel.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife
Series: Clerith Week 2017 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001052
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Cloud of the Mountain

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'Highwind'.

Life, Aeris Gainsborough decided, had become somewhat odd of late. The strange descent into surreality began two days previous when her increasingly unbearable fiance - Rufus Shinra - intruded in on her expedition without warning or invitation. He turned up out of the blue with two suspicious lackeys (or 'Turks' as he insisted on calling them) and immediately commenced on a campaign designed to convince her to go back to Midgar as soon as possible. Like yesterday. That bit she could deal with and insist that no, she was staying with the expedition. Not exactly taking it in his stride, Rufus announced if she wasn't leaving then neither was he. Which would have been fine but for the fact that his mere presence seemed to provoke an ever unfolding disaster as time went on. He patronised, insulted and managed to get her guides injured; dismissed every concern and warning she ever voiced; flat-out ignored every gentle attempt to make him go somewhere - anywhere - else. In constant need of rescue and forever whining about the lack of room service options in the dense jungle, her patience with him was near exhausted.

But despite Rufus's irksome presence, his arrival was down-right sensible compared to what happened next. Her baseline for normal was now somewhat tempered thanks to the odd moment her party caught sight of the towering bulk Mount Nibel and felt the need to coo with appreciation. A moment later a disembodied voice that no one mentioned after informed them that they should be experiencing 'awe' and spelled out the word. The group made the appropriate sound and left it at that.

That had happened hadn't it?

Following that little incident, Rufus decided he would locate the mythic talking cat - the entire reason for the expedition - himself and within the next hour. Rufus's well-meaning (to a point anyway) actions landed them face to face with some kind of electric lynx. Her fiance ignored her recommendation of no sudden movements and no loud noises, screamed, tried to run and managed to knock himself out on a tree branch. Leaving Aeris alone facing a dangerous predator with a hungry look in its eye.

Aeris whirled at the sound of something resembling a war-cry; a man with long, spiky blond hair, wearing nothing besides a loin-cloth, swung down from a nearby tree. He was moving right towards the creature. No, he was moving past the creature- His swing completed its arc into the trunk of another tree with a loud and violent crack. The display did at least attract the lynx's attention away from her, and the predator wound up struck by the flailing, half-naked form of the stranger as he dropped to the ground.

Both of them were back on their feet in an instant, the stranger unfazed by the predator's proximity or the recent and painful sounding collision with the tree. After a moment of circling and feeling each other out, the pair pounced at the same time- Into something rather less than a bloody brawl one might expect in the circumstances. Did the man - how to even phrase this - somehow 'know' the creature? Possible; he was speaking - and in standard no less - to it as they struggled. And taunting it?

Wait. Now the man was running rings around the lynx and at least gave the impression of fighting - if in a strange cartoony way reminiscent of those wrestling programs on television. The pair both plunged into the undergrowth and Aeris was alone again. Just her in a small clearing with an unconscious Rufus Shinra. Okay; no way all that happened. She had not had much to drink today; dehydration had to be the reason for that spectacle. The moment Aeris relaxed was the precise moment the lynx reappeared. Reappeared or another specimen turning up by chance? Irrelevant now- Before Aeris could react or prevent herself from reacting, the same blond man swept back through the clearing at speed on a vine and snatched her from the ground. They flew through the air, the jungle blurring around them as they moved. And into another tree branch.

Everything went black for a while after that.

A brief, murky memory of what might have been an airship caught in the branches of a huge tree in the centre of a large clearning. Something else there too; something furry and red, moving with purpose in the middle distance. The world was making less and less sense by the second.

More blackness after; then a proper awakening.

Aeris came to in a bedroom of sorts. Despite the soft bed, the duvet and the pillows this was not a mundane room. Huge sections of the walls were missing for one thing and left her with a clear view all the way down to the forest floor below. In spite of the openness, the room - as it were - felt enclosed. She froze as she scrambled out of the bed; a red cat-like creature was watching her. Its flame-tipped tale flicked from side to side, its one good eye scrutinizing her. First the lynx and now this? Aeris tensed-

The blond man swung into an adjacent room carrying a large bundle of bananas and looking somewhat pleased with himself. He continued in this style as he headed towards her until his foot caught the edge of a rug and he tripped forward. The bananas went up, the man fell- He bounced onto his feet in a second and caught the bunch as it dropped. "Feeling better?"

Now everything made sense. Aeris grinned. "Okay. It's that dream." The man looked at her, his expression blank. "I'm still having that same dream." She waved to the cat. "Hi there!"

"Hello," the creature rumbled.

Aeris leapt backwards, seeking to put something - anything - between her and the talking cat. "What does it want?"

"'It'," the creature said with a roll of its good eye. "Wants to check your vitals. It wouldn't do you much good to die of fever now would it?"

Aeris giggled and she doubled over with laughter. "That's funny!" she gasped some moments later. The man still looked perplexed. "I thought the cat was talking. But no. I mean, it is totally understandable; why wouldn't a cat want to check my vitals when I wake up in a tree house with room service and a-" She blinked and gestured at the man.

"Cloud," he replied.

"With a Cloud." The room seemed too hot and before she could brace herself, the room slid sideways and Aeris dropped back into the darkness.


End file.
